Love, Haruhi
by treeflamingo
Summary: Haruhi gets suckered into organizing a scavenger hunt for the hosts, but the most troublesome part is signing a letter? Gen and humor, with a touch of romance. All characters feature. No spoilers.


**A/N: **So this is chapter one of what I am sincerely hoping I will eventually turn into a two-parter. I wrote this half more or less forever ago and keep _meaning _to write the rest, but... At any rate, it stands pretty well on it's own. Structurally speaking. And remember, everybody loves reviews!

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It was Thursday night. Haruhi sat at her desk, pen balanced meticulously between her thumb and forefinger, poised to seal her name to the bottom of a slip of notebook paper, in agony.

This was definitely all the twins' fault. Definitely.

It was a week ago when the two of them had slunk up behind her as she prepared to leave homeroom.

"Say, Haruhi," said Hikaru, and a chill of trepidation ran down Haruhi's spine.

"Don't you think things at the club have been getting a tad…" Kaoru

"Boring?" Hikaru, draping his arm around her.

"A little bit predictable, perhaps?" Kaoru, linking an arm around her waist.

"Don't you think…" Hikaru, quietly, leaning in.

"Maybe it's time for a little…" Kaoru, quieter, leaning closer.

"Game?" Hikaru, whispering, right in her ear.

Haruhi froze. Either this was going to end up very, very badly, or, well, no, this could only end very, very badly. She started to contemplate the implications of the fact that they had let her "in" on the game from the very beginning, but knew she didn't have time. Together, the twins had the patience of a red squirrel on pop rocks.

"No, I don't think anything has gotten at all boring, or that we are in need of any kind of game, and we do have to be getting to class, so…" she started to walk away. They contracted their arms at identical rates and she quickly found herself in the middle of one of their patented three-way embraces. She sighed. As usual, getting out of this was no more than wishful thinking.

"Come on, Haruhi, it's not a _dangerous_ game." Kaoru.

"We're not going to _hurt_ anyone." Hikaru.

"In fact, the person coming up with the rules for the game…" Kaoru

"Will be you." Hikaru.

"Me?" Haruhi, incredulous.

They released her once she agreed to hear them out, the bell rang, the imps scampered to their next class, and this new "game" of theirs was not mentioned again all day. Haruhi thought perhaps she had fallen on a chance respite – that they would not harass her again until the next day, that she might have a whole night to think of a good way to weasel her way out of whatever they had planned – when they appeared out of nowhere, as they were wont to do, and whisked her into a long black limousine just as she was leaving the Ouran campus after club activities. She didn't even bother protesting. She should have seen this coming.

The proposed game was, indeed, harmless. Except that at it entailed an awful lot of work for Haruhi. Basically, what the twins wanted was a scavenger hunt. _Basically_. The entirety of what they wanted was ridiculous: an every-man-for-himself race of a treasure-hunt where participants had to use clues (provided by Haruhi) and surmount a series of obstacles and problems (planned by Haruhi) to reach an ultimate goal (chosen by Haruhi) where the one single winner would receive a glowing reward (bestowed by Haruhi). Apparently they had caught a badly-translated episode of _The Amazing Race_ on NicoNicoDou and now wanted to experience it themselves. Haruhi had wondered allowed to them about why _she_ was the schmuck who got stuck planning everything, but the twins were cryptic. Something about Tamaki being too over-the-top and not having time for a trip to the Arctic. While she completely agreed with their worries about Tamaki's excessive nature, and that journeying to the Arctic Circle would involve considerably more time (and money, and dogsleds, and layers of thermal underwear) than Haruhi was willing to invest, she still didn't see what all _that _had to do with forcing her to take the reins for this project. She started to ask (she knew it wouldn't get anywhere), but they cut her off.

"If you can give us a really fun game, we can make it worth your while." Hikaru.

"What?"

"If you create a game that actually stays interesting…" Kaoru.

"And find a reward that's actually satisfying…" Hikaru.

"We'll give you a reward of your own." Kaoru.

"What are you, gangsters? What kind of 'reward' would you give me? And how can I make an 'interesting' game unless you tell me what you mean by 'interesting?' This isn't entirely fair."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Haruhi." Kaoru.

"This is part of what makes it interesting." Hikaru.

"So!" both in unison, "Off you go! See you tomorrow! Game starts next Friday!" And they shoved her indecorously out of the car and onto the curb in front of her apartment.

Haruhi had considered ignoring the twins and their unreasonable demands; she figured if she flat-out refused to participate, there wouldn't be much they could do. Except exact some kind of humiliating revenge. But… it would be an experience, to design a game. It wasn't like she _couldn't_ come up with a complicated scavenger hunt. In fact, the more she thought about it, the bigger her ideas got, and the more it seemed like fun to send her friends on a wild goose chase all over Tokyo. And then something registered in her brain – the twins had specifically said they wanted a game that was "every man for himself," a game with only one winner. No teams. Hikaru and Kaoru wanted to compete against everyone, including each other. Which meant they probably also wanted Hani-senpai to have to play alone without Mori-senpai, and for Kyouya to have a good enough reason to play for himself that he wouldn't help Tamaki. And suddenly Haruhi found herself very, very interested in fulfilling this random commission.

She spent the better part of the following week plotting and planning, exploring Tokyo and thinking up riddles and rules. In the end, she decided the best way to make sure everyone played individually would be to give everyone individualized clues; she would send everybody on their own personal wild goose chase, give everyone their own personal trials to pass, their own personal lists of items to have in their possession by the time they reached the goal, promise them each a personalized (if vague) reward. She drew lines on a map of Tokyo, ensuring that Hani-senpai had to pass through a corner with six different pastry and candy shops (where he would waste valuable time, if he didn't resist), and that his path never crossed with Mori-senpai's (who would worry terribly). She planned Kaoru and Kyouya's paths to cross frequently, but never to go in the same direction at the same time (which would irritate them both to no end), and that both of them only got clues in riddles. She put an important clue for Tamaki on the roof of an elementary school that doubled as an after school daycare center (it would take him hours to reach the roof – he would get distracted at every last classroom door), and made sure everything on Hikaru's list was on sale at a discount store – she even specified the price he was to pay and required sales receipts.

So it was that Thursday night, when all the plans were in place, all the clues and traps set, all the lists written, as she was putting the finishing touches on the personalized instructions she would be handing to each of the hosts at the end of club activities the next day, that Haruhi found herself in an agony of indecision.

She had written to each host in a style appropriate for him. She had put cute stickers on Hani-senpai's instructions (because she couldn't draw worth a piece of penny candy). She wrote Mori-senpai's in her best classic calligraphy and signed her name with a chop. Kyouya's instructions were a typed, bulleted list, and instead of writing her name she used a Western-style signature stamp her father had had made for her when she got into high school. Kaoru's were written backwards (which took forever to get right). Hikaru's instructions were done ransom-note style (which took even longer). For Tamaki she had used excerpts from famous novels and poems and the phrase "my loyal subject" as often as possible. All that was left was to sign her name with a flourish at the bottom of Tamaki's note, and she would be finished. But when she moved her pen to inscribe the first stroke of her last name, a horrible, irrepressible, inexplicable urge overpowered the planning section of her brain, swept down her right arm, and commandeered her fingers to draw a small, simple, innocent… heart. A heart. A shape curvy at the top and pointed at the bottom and recognized the world over as a symbol of affection, fondness, and (she gulped) love. Why had she written a heart? What should she do with this heart? There was no way to morph that stupid heart into the "fu" of Fujioka. Either she would have to rewrite the entire letter, (and her hand was already cramped from writing in the floweriest manner she could for an entire page), or she would have to scrap the overwrought style for her signature. And stick with the heart. Oh God, what would be the implications of handing Tamaki a note with her first name written simply in katakana accompanied by a _heart_ signed to the bottom of it? Because that was what her hand hat wanted to do, to draw a little heart and sign her name just "Haruhi," like she did when she left notes for her father, or wrote letters to friends.

She stared at the heart, and the heart stared back. She swallowed, and the heart stared back. She squeezed her pen and watched her hand shake slightly above the paper, and the heart stared back. She sighed and dropped her head, and the heart veritably beamed in triumph. She finished signing her name (simple, katakana, ha-ru-hi), folded the paper, and slipped it into the envelope that already had Tamaki's name on it. She stacked his envelope with the other five, turned off her light, and crawled into bed.

"There was nothing to be done," she muttered to herself. "Once the heart was there, there was no going back," she justified. And then she fell asleep.

ハルヒ


End file.
